■TELECOMS
Bell Canada to shed jobs
Telecommunications giant Bell Canada will eliminate about 2,500 management jobs as the company restructures to cut costs and increase competitivity, parent BCE Inc said on Monday. The job cuts represent roughly 15 percent of the firm’s white-collar employees and 6 percent of the total work force, said the publicly traded company, which is in the process of being taken private. The new BCE president and chief executive, George Cope, has already slashed his management team by a third after taking up his position two weeks ago.
■FINANCE
Record deficit for Brazil
Brazil’s current account hit a record deficit of US$17.4 billion in the first half of this year, partly on an outflow of corporate funds due to the soaring real, the central bank said on Monday. Foreign companies have virtually doubled the amount of money they are sending out of Brazil back to their head offices compared to the same period last year, the bank said. That is because the real, Brazil’s currency, has strengthened by more than 12 percent against the dollar over the past year, boosting the bottom line of subsidiaries in Latin America’s largest economy.The outflow of funds for the first six months of this year totalled US$19 billion, an increase of 96 percent. The central bank calculates the current account will show a deficit of US$21 billion at the end of the year. That is equivalent to 1.5 percent of GDP.
■SOFTWARE
SAP exceeds expectations
SAP, the world’s biggest business software maker, posted a second quarter net profit yesterday that fell by 9 percent but nonetheless exceeded analysts expectations. SAP made a profit of 408 million euros (US$642 million) in the three months from April to last month, or 0.34 euros per share. Analysts polled by Dow Jones Newswires had forecast net profit of 0.31 euros per share. The lower result was largely a result of SAP’s acquisition last year of software firm Business Objects. Software revenues, a benchmark of group growth, increased by 18 percent from the second quarter of last year to 2.86 billion euros. Total sales gained 18 percent to 2.86 billion euros, while operating profit was up by 2 percent at 593 million.
■ELECTRONICS
Matsushita profits soar
Japan’s Matsushita, the electronics giant behind the Panasonic brand, said yesterday its net profit soared almost 86 percent in the fiscal first quarter helped by brisk sales of flat televisions. Net earnings rose to ¥73.03 billion (US$680 million) in the three months to last month from ¥39.31 billion in the same period of the previous year, Matsushita Electric Industrial Co said in a statement. Revenue fell by 3.9 percent to ¥2.15 trillion after the company slashed its stake in troubled affiliate JVC. For the full financial year to March, the group left unchanged its forecasts for net profit of ¥310 billion on revenue of ¥9.20 trillion.
■PHARMACEUTICALS
Teva to make big investment
Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd, the world’s largest maker of generic drugs, will invest as much as US$10.5 million in the CureTech Ltd unit of Clal Biotechnology Industries Ltd to fund research. The investment will be used by CureTech to complete Phase II trials of the experimental compound CT011 for reducing tumor growth and other operations, Clal said in a statement to the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange yesterday. If it invests all US$10.5 million, Teva will hold 38 percent of CureTech, Clal said.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
EYE ON STRAIT: The US spending bill ‘doubles security cooperation funding for Taiwan,’ while also seeking to counter the influence of China US President Joe Biden on Saturday signed into law a US$1.2 trillion spending package that includes US$300 million in foreign military financing to Taiwan, as well as funding for Taipei-Washington cooperative projects. The US Congress early on Saturday overwhelmingly passed the Further Consolidated Appropriations Act 2024 to avoid a partial shutdown and fund the government through September for a fiscal year that began six months ago. Under the package, the Defense Appropriations Act would provide a US$27 billion increase from the previous fiscal year to fund “critical national defense efforts, including countering the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” according to a summary
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)